Do you value your phone more highly than your life?
I smash the phone as hard as I can. The glass shatters and falls away in pieces, and the guts of the thing spill out. I smash it again and the case cracks, I smash it again and it folds in on itself, and I keep smashing it, over and over and over.
ON THE SUBWAY TO BROOKLYN BY RICHARD ABRAMSON 34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 122
Margaret glances over my shoulder to an antique clock that ticks off my remaining seconds. “Lily, I’m afraid our time is up,” she says with that smug, put-on regret that therapists seem born to. It makes me want to wrap my chewed-nail fingers around her throat and squeeze, until the last words she hears in this life are, “Margaret, I’m afraid your time is up.”
“Thank you, Margaret,” I say instead, “See you next week?”
On my way out I stop at the restroom to pee. It doesn’t matter whether or not I pee right before a session, half way through I always need to go, and my therapists always ask me why I seem distracted. I told one of them once–I think his name was Dave, which is a name right for a mechanic but all wrong for a mental health professional–and from the look he gave me he might as well have said out loud, “It’s your money, lady, piss it away if you want to.” So, now I just hold it in and keep it to myself. It’s okay, it’s good, it makes me feel like a flagellant.
I head down to 14th Street to catch the subway to Brooklyn. It’s only six blocks and I walk slowly, scanning the sidewalk for dog poop. With so many people walking and skipping and dodging, it’s like walking through a freaking minefield. I do not want to meet the minister with shit on my shoe.
I know I must sound like a lunatic, but really I’m not. Although it is fair to say that I have issues. Sometimes I can’t understand why I’m here. I’ll be in a meeting with some bean-counter droning on about this budget shortfall or that change in FASB adjustments and, all of a sudden, the neurological bungee cord that stretches to attach meaning to events just snaps. I can feel it at the back of my neck like an MSG buzz. I’ll look around, trying not to panic. Why am I here? At some level–what is the purpose of this meeting, on this day, in this awful, stale-smelling conference room–the answer is pretty clear, even if it’s usually absurd. But when I zoom out–why in the name of God am I here on earth?–I can almost never come up with a satisfactory answer. Margaret calls it existential angst and says lots of people feel this way. Like that’s supposed to be a comfort.
I’m getting married. Pete made the arrangements, he’s very organized. He found the minister and we’re meeting with him at his church in Brooklyn. If I pass muster we’ll get married next month, and after it’s done everybody will gather at the Brooklyn Marriott across the street from Shake Shack, and there will be food and a DJ.
My brother is giving the toast instead of my dad, which scares me to death because my brother doesn’t like me. With a few drinks under his belt he could say anything. I wish my dad could do the toast. He likes me fine and has never been shy about saying so. We used to have a standing lunch date every Thursday at PJ Bernstein’s on 2nd Avenue between 70th and 71st. I was usually late, but I knew he’d be waiting, waving me over to one of the marble-topped tables along the wall, our regular orders laid out and ready to eat. “I got you potato pancakes with apple sauce for a change, Lily,” he would say. “Give it a chance.”
The weathered joke became a weekly incantation, as reliable as the latkes. I always laughed, not because the joke was funny but for the sheer joy of hearing him say it.
Now with his Alzheimer’s he doesn’t even know who I am, and I don’t go to PJ Bernstein any more. I still eat latkes–there are limits even to grief–but now I whisper the joke to myself.
I’m really not sure I should be getting married at all. I know I said I don’t think I’m a lunatic, and I don’t. But that doesn’t mean I’m normal. My friend Julie says don’t worry about it, no-one’s normal, what does normal even mean? Julie has a rhinoceros tattoo on her left boob and an elephant tattoo on her right one. She told me that her boyfriend pushes them together and makes them fight. I don’t value Julie’s advice all that highly.
It’s five and I need to be in Brooklyn by six. If this minister is anything like my professors in college it won’t go well for me if I’m late. And Pete will be annoyed, although being Presbyterian he’ll pretend he isn’t.
The subway is like descending into the Underworld. In Penn Station one time, a lumpy sanitation worker in faded orange overalls and dark-framed glasses informed me that the subway lines run at different depths. “Like the seven circles of Hell,” he said. When I didn’t respond, he bent down, leaning in close. “You know,” he said, speaking loudly so that I would understand. “Dante Alighieri? The Divine Comedy?”
Taking the stairs down into the subway the rush of cars and the howl of sirens fades into the vibratory hum of distant trains and the rumble of trucks overhead. On the white-tiled wall an electronic map displays color-coded lines and stations, the Brooklyn-bound lines twist like snakes, slithering across Manhattan, diving under the East River and rising to slough off the passengers in Park Slope or Williamsburg or Bushwick.
The platform is dotted with color like a Jackson Pollack painting, with commuters in red, yellow, and green parkas puffed up like balloons, Burberry trench coats with plaid cuffs and collars, and, in this part of the city, bright-blue Mets jackets with garish orange sleeves that seem disembodied.
The air down here is thick and heavy. I sniff it like wine, detecting subtle tones of ancient brick, creosote, and, in the finish, mildew and dust.
I’m thinking about Pete. I still can’t understand why he wants to marry me, and when I worked up the courage to ask him he said I’m smart and pretty and interesting. I’m guessing he said the same thing to his first wife. Still, he says it like he means it and he strokes me as he would a beloved pet. And I suppose it’s sort of true. I’m reasonably smart–or at least well-educated–and not that bad-looking if your taste runs to confused 30-something women with green eyes, small breasts, and mousey brown hair.
Margaret says I’m asking the wrong question. “Do you love him?” she asked. I had to think about it, which probably isn’t a good sign. But it’s not about Pete. Pete is tall and solid and nice. Oh, that sounds terrible, doesn’t it? Not just nice. Very nice.
But like I said, it’s not about Pete. The question isn’t whether I love Pete, it’s whether I can love anybody. I’m not sure why, but if love is a beautiful round peg, it feels like all the holes in my brain must be square. Or if you want to approach the whole thing more scientifically, I’m not sure that there’s a binding site in my brain to which love’s protein can attach. I loved my dad–love, he’s not dead, just gone–but that’s different, isn’t it?
I don’t know, sometimes it feels like I’m just wired wrong. Sex, for example. When Pete and I make love it’s fine, all the relevant systems perform their assigned functions in the proper order and with admirable efficiency. But the whole time he’s touching and kissing, entering and thrusting, grunting and coming, I’m thinking about something else. Not on purpose. It’s not like I’m trying to distract myself from some unpleasantness. It’s just that my mind wanders. When I explained this to Margaret, she thought for a few moments and then suggested I eat more chocolate. Honestly, it’s not the worst advice she’s given me.
The platform trembles with an approaching train. As one, the commuter collective shifts its weight, readying itself. Someone drifts past me and I look over to see a striking, athletically-built man whose long dark hair is bound in a ponytail. His eyes are narrow, his cheek bones are prominent and his nose is straight. He moves with careful grace, as a dancer would, and he’s dressed in black, like a ninja. Notably, a sword in a wooden sheath is slung across his back. I’ve seen enough Kurosawa Akira movies to recognize a samurai sword when I see one.
The train lurches to a stop and the doors grudgingly slide open. The car in front of me is lit up by the kind of flickering fluorescent light that sometimes triggers seizures, and the smell–an oppressive mixture of sweat, degrading plastic and spilled beer–immediately makes me nauseous.
A repressed understanding breaks free of my subconscious and forces its way to the surface. I do not want to get on this subway train, it whispers. And in fact, I think I might just stand here and let the doors close on the flickering lights and the smell, and the possible psychopath with a samurai sword, and the minister.
But it’s too late. The cluster of commuters surges forward, carrying me with it, through the door and into the car, where I latch onto a steel pole and try to breathe normally.
Next to me, the ninja with the samurai sword smiles like a cat.